The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home abovetwo months. I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the general voicemight be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent the emotionsand endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest word ofpraise as I heard nothing else.

At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there, andpassed the evening. I usually rode back at night; for the old unhappysense was always hovering about me now--most sorrowfully when I lefther--and I was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over thepast in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. I wore away the longestpart of many wild sad nights, in those rides; reviving, as I went, thethoughts that had occupied me in my long absence.

Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of thosethoughts, I should better express the truth. They spoke to me from afaroff. I had put them at a distance, and accepted my inevitable place.When I read to Agnes what I wrote; when I saw her listening face; movedher to smiles or tears; and heard her cordial voice so earnest on theshadowy events of that imaginative world in which I lived; I thoughtwhat a fate mine might have been--but only thought so, as I had thoughtafter I was married to Dora, what I could have wished my wife to be.

My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted, Iwronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my maturedassurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and won what Ihad impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur, and must bear;comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But I loved her: and nowit even became some consolation to me, vaguely to conceive a distant daywhen I might blamelessly avow it; when all this should be over; when Icould say 'Agnes, so it was when I came home; and now I am old, and Inever have loved since!'

She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always had beento me, she still was; wholly unaltered.

Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion,since the night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint, or anavoidance of the subject, so much as an implied understanding that wethought of it together, but did not shape our thoughts into words. When,according to our old custom, we sat before the fire at night, we oftenfell into this train; as naturally, and as consciously to each other, asif we had unreservedly said so. But we preserved an unbroken silence. Ibelieved that she had read, or partly read, my thoughts that night; andthat she fully comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct expression.

This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no newconfidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in mymind--whether she could have that perception of the true state ofmy breast, which restrained her with the apprehension of giving mepain--began to oppress me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice wasnothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; and every pooraction I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to set thisright beyond all doubt;--if such a barrier were between us, to break itdown at once with a determined hand.

It was--what lasting reason have I to remember it!--a cold, harsh,winter day. There had been snow, some hours before; and it lay, notdeep, but hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond my window, thewind blew ruggedly from the north. I had been thinking of it, sweepingover those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland, then inaccessible toany human foot; and had been speculating which was the lonelier, thosesolitary regions, or a deserted ocean.

'Riding today, Trot?' said my aunt, putting her head in at the door.

'Yes,' said I, 'I am going over to Canterbury. It's a good day for aride.'

'I hope your horse may think so too,' said my aunt; 'but at present heis holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there,as if he thought his stable preferable.'

My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, buthad not at all relented towards the donkeys.

'He will be fresh enough, presently!' said I.

'The ride will do his master good, at all events,' observed my aunt,glancing at the papers on my table. 'Ah, child, you pass a good manyhours here! I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it wasto write them.'

'It's work enough to read them, sometimes,' I returned. 'As to thewriting, it has its own charms, aunt.'

'Ah! I see!' said my aunt. 'Ambition, love of approbation, sympathy, andmuch more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!'

'Do you know anything more,' said I, standing composedly before her--shehad patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair--'of thatattachment of Agnes?'

She looked up in my face a little while, before replying:

'I think I do, Trot.'

'Are you confirmed in your impression?' I inquired.

'I think I am, Trot.'

She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, orsuspense in her affection: that I summoned the stronger determination toshow her a perfectly cheerful face.

'And what is more, Trot--' said my aunt.

'Yes!'

'I think Agnes is going to be married.'

'God bless her!' said I, cheerfully.

'God bless her!' said my aunt, 'and her husband too!'

I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs, mounted,and rode away. There was greater reason than before to do what I hadresolved to do.

How well I recollect the wintry ride! The frozen particles of ice,brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face;the hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground;the stiff-tilled soil; the snowdrift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pitas the breeze ruffled it; the smoking team with the waggon of old hay,stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and shaking their bells musically;the whitened slopes and sweeps of Down-land lying against the dark sky,as if they were drawn on a huge slate!

I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes now,and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book on seeingme come in; and having welcomed me as usual, took her work-basket andsat in one of the old-fashioned windows.

I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I was doing,and when it would be done, and of the progress I had made since my lastvisit. Agnes was very cheerful; and laughingly predicted that I shouldsoon become too famous to be talked to, on such subjects.

'So I make the most of the present time, you see,' said Agnes, 'and talkto you while I may.'

As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she raised hermild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her.

'You are thoughtful today, Trotwood!'

'Agnes, shall I tell you what about? I came to tell you.'

She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were seriouslydiscussing anything; and gave me her whole attention.

'My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?'

'No!' she answered, with a look of astonishment.

'Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you?'

'No!' she answered, as before.

'Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home, what a debtof gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently I felt towardsyou?'

'I remember it,' she said, gently, 'very well.'

'You have a secret,' said I. 'Let me share it, Agnes.'

She cast down her eyes, and trembled.

'I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard--but from otherlips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange--that there is someone uponwhom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do not shut me out ofwhat concerns your happiness so nearly! If you can trust me, as you sayyou can, and as I know you may, let me be your friend, your brother, inthis matter, of all others!'

With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from thewindow; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, puther hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote me to theheart.

And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart.Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with the quietlysad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more withhope than fear or sorrow.

'Agnes! Sister! Dearest! What have I done?'

'Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I will speakto you by and by--another time. I will write to you. Don't speak to menow. Don't! don't!'

I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to her onthat former night, of her affection needing no return. It seemed a veryworld that I must search through in a moment. 'Agnes, I cannot bearto see you so, and think that I have been the cause. My dearest girl,dearer to me than anything in life, if you are unhappy, let me shareyour unhappiness. If you are in need of help or counsel, let me try togive it to you. If you have indeed a burden on your heart, let me try tolighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, if it is not for you!'

'Oh, spare me! I am not myself! Another time!' was all I coulddistinguish.

Was it a selfish error that was leading me away? Or, having once a clueto hope, was there something opening to me that I had not dared to thinkof?

'I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so! For Heaven's sake,Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years, and allthat has come and gone with them! I must speak plainly. If you have anylingering thought that I could envy the happiness you will confer; thatI could not resign you to a dearer protector, of your own choosing; thatI could not, from my removed place, be a contented witness of your joy;dismiss it, for I don't deserve it! I have not suffered quite in vain.You have not taught me quite in vain. There is no alloy of self in whatI feel for you.'

She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face towardsme, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but very clear:

'I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood--which, indeed, I donot doubt--to tell you, you are mistaken. I can do no more. If I havesometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and counsel, they havecome to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling has passedaway. If I have ever had a burden on my heart, it has been lightenedfor me. If I have any secret, it is--no new one; and is--not what yousuppose. I cannot reveal it, or divide it. It has long been mine, andmust remain mine.'

'Agnes! Stay! A moment!'

She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about herwaist. 'In the course of years!' 'It is not a new one!' New thoughts andhopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life werechanging.

'Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honour--whom I so devotedly love!When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have wrested thisconfession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all ourlives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have indeed any new-born hopethat I may ever call you something more than Sister, widely differentfrom Sister!--'

Her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately shed,and I saw my hope brighten in them.

'Agnes! Ever my guide, and best support! If you had been more mindfulof yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together, I think myheedless fancy never would have wandered from you. But you were somuch better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish hope anddisappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely upon ineverything, became a second nature, supplanting for the time the firstand greater one of loving you as I do!'

Still weeping, but not sadly--joyfully! And clasped in my arms as shehad never been, as I had thought she never was to be!

'When I loved Dora--fondly, Agnes, as you know--'

'Yes!' she cried, earnestly. 'I am glad to know it!'

'When I loved her--even then, my love would have been incomplete,without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when I losther, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still!'

Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon myshoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine!

'I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. Ireturned home, loving you!'

And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had, and theconclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her, truly, andentirely. I tried to show her how I had hoped I had come into the betterknowledge of myself and of her; how I had resigned myself to what thatbetter knowledge brought; and how I had come there, even that day, in myfidelity to this. If she did so love me (I said) that she could take mefor her husband, she could do so, on no deserving of mine, except uponthe truth of my love for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened tobe what it was; and hence it was that I revealed it. And O, Agnes, evenout of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wifelooked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, totenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom!

'I am so blest, Trotwood--my heart is so overcharged--but there is onething I must say.'

'Dearest, what?'

She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in myface.

'Do you know, yet, what it is?'

'I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear.'

'I have loved you all my life!'

O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials (hersso much the greater) through which we had come to be thus, but for therapture of being thus, never to be divided more!

We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the blessedcalm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. The early starsbegan to shine while we were lingering on, and looking up to them, wethanked our GOD for having guided us to this tranquillity.

We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when themoon was shining; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it; I followingher glance. Long miles of road then opened out before my mind; and,toiling on, I saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and neglected, whoshould come to call even the heart now beating against mine, his own.

It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt. Shewas up in my study, Peggotty said: which it was her pride to keep inreadiness and order for me. We found her, in her spectacles, sitting bythe fire.

'Goodness me!' said my aunt, peering through the dusk, 'who's thisyou're bringing home?'

'Agnes,' said I.

As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a littlediscomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said 'Agnes'; butseeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair,and rubbed her nose with them.

She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in thelighted parlour downstairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her spectaclestwice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as often took themoff again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them. Much to thediscomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom.

'By the by, aunt,' said I, after dinner; 'I have been speaking to Agnesabout what you told me.'

'Then, Trot,' said my aunt, turning scarlet, 'you did wrong, and brokeyour promise.'

'You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you won't be, when youlearn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' said my aunt.

As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to cut herannoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, and weboth leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one lookthrough her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the firstand only time in all my knowledge of her.

The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored, sheflew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged her withall her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was highly honoured,but a good deal surprised); and after that, told them why. Then, we wereall happy together.

I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversationwith me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really mistaken the stateof my mind. It was quite enough, she said, that she had told me Agneswas going to be married; and that I now knew better than anyone how trueit was.

We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and Doctor andMrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We left themfull of joy; and drove away together. Clasped in my embrace, I held thesource of every worthy aspiration I had ever had; the centre of myself,the circle of my life, my own, my wife; my love of whom was founded on arock!

'Dearest husband!' said Agnes. 'Now that I may call you by that name, Ihave one thing more to tell you.'

'Let me hear it, love.'

'It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me.'

'She did.'

'She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it was?'

I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me, closer tomy side.

'She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a lastcharge.'

'And it was--'

'That only I would occupy this vacant place.'

And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and I wept with her,though we were so happy.